


A Family Affair

by vega_voices



Series: Tapestry [4]
Category: Murphy Brown (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Playing matchmaker, old idiots in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-06
Updated: 2019-06-06
Packaged: 2020-04-11 19:17:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19116040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vega_voices/pseuds/vega_voices
Summary: Generations of movies told her she could fix this and get them together. But for now, she turned her attention to the menu.





	A Family Affair

**Title:** A Family Affair  
**Author:** vegawriters  
**Fandom:** Murphy Brown  
**Series:** Tapestry  
**Pairing:** Murphy Brown/Peter Hunt; Murphy Brown/Nate Campbell  
**Timeframe:** Post Canon  
**Rating:** Teen  
**A/N:** If season 12 existed, I would want it to be this storyline. Also, Corrie Hunt is my idea.  
**Disclaimer:** Murphy Brown is owned by WB and Bend in the Road and I don’t make a dime off of my rambling. In fact, I should be revising my novel …

 **Summary:** Generations of movies told her she could fix this and get them together. But for now, she turned her attention to the menu.

“It’s so weird. You’ve got an office and everything. I heard CNC made their staffers work from home. But this is an actual office with a desk and, I assume, at least a wifi connection?”

Peter jumped and looked up at the familiar voice. In the doorway stood a young woman with dark brown hair, wide brown eyes, and a smirk on her face that always scared him. His daughter had her weight cocked to her left hip, her arms crossed over her What Would Stacey Abrams Do t-shirt, and her battered messenger bag hanging off her shoulder.

“You don’t know hell until you’ve tried to link up to a satellite feed in the middle of the Iraqui desert,” he taunted right back.

Corrie grinned at him. “Hi, Dad.”

Peter stood and walked over, arms out. He had a lot of regrets in his life, a lot of half formed questions about paths he should have taken, but all of the questions led him back to this woman, right here. She’d inherited his height, her mother’s coloring, and both of their pig-headedness. He worried, constantly, how she saw him, what she thought about him, if he’d done the right thing in just living his life and showing her what it meant to be who he really was. Most of the time, he was sure she hated him. Even with her following him to journalism school. But, when she hugged him tight, all the worries floated away.

“CNC is a major operation,” he taunted right back, returning to his desk and sitting. Corrie followed, taking a seat in the other chair. “I mean, you can’t land the talent they land without some perks.”

“You know a lot of people think that it’s NowThis for old people, right?” Corrie’s face was serious but her eyes were twinkling. “I mean, come on, their lead anchor is a woman who--”

Peter cut her off. “You, a journalism major, were not about to say anything bad about Murphy Brown there were you?”

“I’m saying that MSNBC has Rachel Maddow and the woman hasn’t aged in 15 years. You’ve … got Murphy Brown and she’s hella smart and all, Dad, but she’s in her 70s and you’re in your 60s and what’s next? The morning show anchored by the ghost of Walter Cronkite?”

Peter raised an eyebrow but she couldn’t hold her laughter in any longer. “Dude, chill. You realize watching Murphy’s show is like, required now, for 101 students, right? So’s your stuff. Who knew my dad was so cool.”

Something in her tone made him twitch. Corrie knew something.

“Also, who knew my dad was once engaged to her? That was a complete surprise.”

The room stilled.

“You thought I’d come out here for my internship and not do research? I mean, I appreciate your team extending the offer, especially since you’re so strapped for staff as you get started, but come on, Dad. I finally sat down and looked up the great Peter Hunt. Google is a treasure trove of all of these pictures of the two of you and the fact that you got engaged to mom less than a year after you split up with Murphy says a lot, don’t you think?”

Shit.

Corrie met his eyes. “I mean, it’s all well and good. Cause I came along. But who knew it would all come home to roost here. You, me. Her, and I’m assuming her son at some point. Soaps don’t write this kind of drama.”

“Corrie …” he cautioned.

“Dad, I don’t care. It’s just a whole host of info that I’m glad I have before people start asking me why you two are casting longing looks across the hall.” She grinned. “I’m here to work. Can’t carry on the Hunt line without getting my hands dirty.” A pause.

“I have just one question,” Peter cut in, his breath finally settling. “Why the hell did it take you that long to google me? A good reporter would have found the dirt years ago.”

She smirked. “How do you know I didn’t.”

“God, you’re a brat.” He laughed.

“Yeah, well. Between you and mom, it’s kind of a given.”

“How is your mom?”

“Good. You know, you could call her sometimes and find out.”

“Heard she’s getting married again.”

“Yeah. Some art professor who is far too stuffy for someone like her, but whatever. He seems to make her happy.”

“That’s all that matters,” Peter responded, his eyes darting, inadvertently, to the office across the hall. Murphy was in there, he knew, working on her copy for that night’s show. He took a breath and looked back at his daughter, who was scrolling her phone. “You want to get started now or get back, have dinner, and be up bright and early with me in the morning?”

“Honestly?” She glanced up.

“Yes.”

“I know I was giving you grief, but Dad, I’d kind of like to stick around and watch Murphy’s show. Can we go to Phil’s, you go over your format and introduce me to my EP, and then we watch the taping?”

Peter swallowed nervously. “Of course.” Even he hadn’t done that yet. But here was his kid, ready and willing. “I’ve waited my whole life to take you to Phil’s. Come on. Leave your bag here.”

She popped up, slipped her phone into her jeans pocket, and followed him out of his office.

***

Corinne Theresa Hunt hadn’t always wanted to be a reporter. When she was a kid, she’d wanted nothing to do with either of her parents' jobs. Her mother’s time at the art gallery always felt confining. The paintings were pretty, but there was such a theme and everyone was always so serious about all of it. Her dad’s job kept him out of the country more often than not and she knew it was the reason her mother had left him. For all of her guff and teasing about how quickly her parents had gotten engaged, she also knew they loved each other. That she’d never doubted.

It hadn’t been until her junior year in high school that she realized exactly what she wanted to do. She’d wanted to write. She’d wanted to pen Great American Novels and get all of them optioned by Netflix. Instead she kept writing commentary for the school paper. So, when her friends had suggested she join the paper her senior year, she’d done it. And then, applied to Northwestern on a dare. So there she was, freezing her ass off in Chicago, majoring in journalism, minoring in creative writing, and knowing full well that her chosen profession was hard and gritty and worse than anything her dad could have ever imagined being. And, she loved it. She loved every aspect of chasing down a story, of the way a live production came together. She even loved the debates about racism in newsrooms and if the press was complicit when it didn’t turn its backs on the current administration.

She tried to come off as too-cool in front of her dad, but really, she adored him and his profession and if she was half the journalist he was, she’d retire happy.

Though, she had zero desire to get kidnapped by government forces.

This internship, the last before graduation, was really her thesis. She had applied with the intention of creating a segment for her father’s show. Her concept was the discussion about international politics from a generational view, bringing in the boomers, the xers, the millennials, and Gen Z. She wanted the panel to be a mix of ages and races and genders and sexual orientations and she wanted them to be experts in their field. She’d shopped it to a couple of other shows, and even Murphy’s had accepted her, but in truth, she’d wanted to work with her father. To some it looked like nepotism, but she had the chance to learn from one of the legends in the business. She wanted to learn from her father.

So now, she followed him across the street from the network and under the green awning marking the 100 year old drinking hole. Phil’s Bar and Grill was …

Everything she’d always wanted it to be.

Her eyes zeroed in on the Black Lives Matter sign, made from torn pieces of the American Flag. The framed photos of living presidents. The campaign paraphernalia.

Murphy Brown and Frank Fontana sitting at a table.

She stared at them, the legends of journalism, the people her father had worked with. The people …

She blinked, feeling the blood drain from her just a bit. In this moment, it hit her, harder than any google search ever could have, that her father belonged at that table. Her father had built the landscape she was now trying to survive in. They’d created a space for hard hitting journalism that the corporations and current administration were trying to destroy, but they’d done it. They were the gold standard.

And her father had almost married Murphy Brown.

Suddenly, she wanted to know everything. She wanted to sit with Frank and Murphy and listen to them talk, but instead, she watched her father stop cold and take a deep breath. His voice changed as they approached the table, “Frank, Murphy, I’d like you to meet my daughter. Corrie.”

Corrie barely registered shaking Murphy’s hand. She watched through a haze as Frank made some joke about life turning out better and she didn’t miss the pained look on either her father’s or Murphy’s faces. Her desire to join them for lunch was thwarted by her father moving to a booth and sitting right where he could see Murphy.

So. Even in his 60s, her father was still a lovesick highschooler.

Generations of movies told her she could fix this and get them together. But for now, she turned her attention to the menu.

“Can I ask you something?” She finally asked, after their sandwiches had arrived and Murphy and Frank had bid their goodbyes.

“Always, kiddo.”

“Why the hell did you marry mom when, twenty years later, you still look at Murphy like she’s an angel?”

Her father’s eyes bugged out of his head and he choked on a piece of bacon. “What?”

“Dad. Come on. I deserve to know.”

“Can’t we talk about anything else?”

“No. I have to work there. I deserve to know what really happened.”

He let out a sigh she didn’t expect. “Honestly, Corrie … I don’t know if either of us actually know what happened either. One minute, I was going to put a ring on her finger and adopt her son. The next, I was headed out of the country. By the time we spoke again, you were already here.”

It hurt more than she wanted to admit, this confession that there had been another child first, one he’d wanted to jump through the hoops to claim as his own.

“Did you marry mom because she was a rebound?”

“I love your mom,” her father said. “But honestly … I think I did.”

The first lesson in journalism: don’t ask questions you aren’t ready to hear the answer to. She’d asked the question. Now, there was only one followup.

“Are you sorry you married her?”

Her father took a breath and looked into her eyes. “No. Not for a second. I love her and I love you. But if I had to do it over, I wouldn’t walk out the door that night. Or, I’d call her back, which I never did.”

Never ask the question you weren’t ready to hear the answer to.

Corrie popped a fry into her mouth, trying to cover the sudden nausea, the worry that there was some kid out there who he’d wanted more. She believed him when he said he wasn’t sorry for marrying her mother, but she was also sitting here, at Phil’s, and she’d seen him stare at Murphy as she left the bar.

Quickly, Corrie took a breath and changed the subject. “So, can I pick your brain about my segment?”

He too seemed glad for the pivot. “Hey, I’m just flattered you want my advice. What do you want your first topic to be?”

“How news divisions are really entertainment now and how that’s destabilizing journalism.”

“You don’t start light, do you?”

“There’s no time like the present, right?”

He smiled. She took a breath. And another. Okay. Back on solid ground. She’d worry herself into a tizzy later.

***

“You know,” the voice taunted from the doorway, “Your story on gun control would have been stronger if you’d incorporated some of --”

“Shut up.” Murphy cut him off, barely containing the smile on her lips. She turned to her old lover, arms crossed, and raised an eyebrow. “Last time you said something like that, didn’t I take out 600 dollars with of bridgework?”

“Actually, I said you were getting soft and needed to just go home and be a mommy and that’s when you knocked me sideways.”

Murphy chuckled and relaxed her posture, leaning back against the desk. Images of that never-forgotten night flashing through her mind - the conversation after the show, the lingering glances at Phil’s, how she’d called to warn him about stealing his credit card number. Did he remember things the same way she did? The adolescent taunting all to hide their real feelings? The kiss before his interview? The way he’d slid his hand up between her thighs and teased her to the brink with the softest fluttering of his fingers? Did he remember her shoving the donut into his face that day in the bullpen or how she’d dumped dirt into his coffee or how he’d so gently coaxed her out of her bubble the first night they’d made love and how she’d never felt so treasured until his arms went around her?

His eyes told her that for all the years between them, he did.

“Murphy …”

She shook her head as thoughts of Nate came, unbidden, past her barriers. She couldn’t do this. Not now. Not when he still looked like he could race up the steps at the colosseum and she was dealing with two fake hips and a back that didn’t like the extra weight she carried now. She wasn’t that woman anymore. She wouldn’t be coaxed into quiet corners or have sex on the couch in her office. She was seventy-one and looked it and her joy was found in quiet nights with a gentle judge.

God, she’d wasted so much time. This was what regret truly meant and it wasn’t fair to her or to Nate or to Peter.

“How’s show prep going?” She countered the emotion in his voice. She needed to stop this train before she locked the door and pretended there wasn’t twenty years between them.

“We’ll be up and running for our first show next week. CNC’s got a good crew.”

“Now if they’d only give us a budget,” she chuckled. “But it’s a start and it’s nice being an actual division and not part of the entertainment budget.”

“Amen.” Peter relaxed a bit. Murphy didn’t.

Silence stretched. What was she supposed to do here? Was it too late to even be friends?

“I’m sorry,” she blurted out. He blinked. So did she. “And I don’t know where that came from.”

Peter only shook his head and walked into the office. He didn’t close the door, didn’t say a word. He just came over, took her hands in his, raised them to his lips, and kissed them. “Me too,” he murmured.

She wanted to say more, but wasn’t sure it was worth it. So she sucked in a breath, pulled her hands free, and walked behind her desk, protecting herself. “So,” she said. “You have notes for tonight?”

He snorted. “Well … are you going to listen to them?”

A grin crossed her face and she relaxed. Slightly. “Probably not.”

“What’s tomorrow’s focus?”

“Nice try, buddy.” She leaned back in her chair. “Don’t you have your own show to prep?”

Okay. See. She could do this. She could banter and live and breathe and work. They weren’t on the same show and other than the fates putting them across the hall from each other, there was no reason for them to even see each other. She could stop being a teenage girl.

Frank was right. If they were supposed to be together, they would have just gotten married.

Another breath. Peter grinned. “All right, watch me own you on this story.”

“Give it your best shot.”

He chuckled and took a step back. “See you later, Murphy.”

_Always threatening to leave but never quite going …_

She’d taunted him that night, pushing him away, but he’d stayed and come back inside and the kiss on her couch still ranked in the top five moments of her entire life. When he’d walked out the door on their last night together, she’d stayed up for hours, waiting for him to keep his pattern. To not leave. That time, he hadn’t come back.

But here he was all over again. Murphy glanced across the hall and breathed easier as he closed his office door behind him.

She could do this. She had to.

*** 

It wasn’t his fault that she was stunning. Avery sat at the end of the bar, nursing a beer, staring across the room at the young brunette he didn’t recognize. Definitely new in town, and she carried herself like a reporter. Her hair was cropped short in a pixie cut, her wide brown eyes took in everything in the room, and he was entranced by the Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra shirt she was wearing. It took stones to brazenly show off Star Trek love in a room full of cynics.

Better yet, she kept meeting his eyes.

Well, maybe today would get better.

He was working more and more. Print publications were taking up his time, and he felt like a reporter and less like the idiot who had walked off the Wolf set. As time went on, the story was becoming a bit of a legend as more and more people discussed the propaganda of the network. He’d stood up for journalistic principles. That meant … something?

Still, just because it was getting better didn’t mean things weren’t frustrating. He and Lauren hadn’t lasted, he needed his mother and his access to his trust fund more than he wanted to acknowledge, and three different publications were late with his payments. So, catching the eye of a beautiful woman in a bar was at least a small win. Gathering his courage, he got up and walked over to her. She raised her eyes and smirked.

“I was wondering when you’d get the hint,” she chuckled.

“Hate to be presumptuous. Tumblr tells me not to be,” he joked. She rolled her eyes. “I’m Avery.”

“I know. Avery Brown.” She held out a hand. “I’m Corrie.”

He ignored that she knew who he was already. So, this wasn’t a random meeting. Damnit. He just wanted something fun. “Can I buy you a drink?”

“Coke is fine,” she replied. “Want to grab a table?”

“Sure.” He signaled Miguel, who came over with a second beer and a fresh coke and Avery joined Corrie at the table. “So, what brings you to DC?”

“Work,” she said. “I’m an intern at CNC.”

“And that’s how you know me then?”

“You don’t work there,” she teased. She leaned forward, elbows on the table. “Look,” she said, “I’m a lesbian and you aren’t getting anywhere near me. So, I’m gonna cut right to the chase. Your mom and my dad were in love twenty years ago and they’re still in love and neither of them are getting younger. So, what do you say we parent trap this bitch up and get them back together before they write their own John Hughes movie about highschool romance.”

Avery paused, processed what she said, and started to laugh. “You’re Peter’s kid?”

“You should have been,” she came back at him. “So, what do you say? Cause I’ve been here for five days and I’m already tired of his moping.”

He let a slow grin cross his face. “What did you have in mind?”


End file.
